A Woodcock, Girolles, A Baguette, and a French Inn

Published by Wednesday, October 23, 2019 Permalink 0

Bécasse*, a story in two parts: A Hundred Years of Bécasse: Part I

by Dorette Snover

I wanted to fix what was wrong, here, in this – this place, this time I remembered so well. When I loved. Where I loved. And yet how ironic as here was where everything started unraveling on the first night of the Bécasse.

The drive into the setting sun from Agen made me wish we hadn’t missed our earlier train. But we had. It was my fault, but how could I leave Paris without visiting Rue Daguerre and picking up a perfect brie, rosy pears, a few chestnuts? 

The Hunt: woodcock and hunting dog.

After the hunt: woodcock and hunting dog.

We pulled into the Auberge and barely missed hitting the stone wall. The millhouse still sat undisturbed by time, hell, it was time itself. Flanked by the millpond and the rushing river, the river Gélise coursed through it, cleansing and cooling the fires inside.

Once inside it seemed important not to disturb the shadows and gentle aura by flicking a switch and turning on a light. That would be too easy. I wanted to remember, I had to be careful. With the last little bit of sun on the kitchen, I found a white plate for the bruised tomatoes from the Paris market. The girolle mushrooms looked small and insufficient, but they had survived better than the poor tomatoes; all they needed was heat and a little butter. There was plenty of time for that in the morning. I was already relishing coming down in the morning and hearing the whoosh of the burners.

French baguette/bread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the shadows of the kitchen, the baguette might be a knotted tree, the baker’s slashes on the crust that birthed the ears and eyes of the bread. My husband drew the knife from the block and pressed its teeth against the curved length. I gently took it away and slid the saw-toothed beast back in its slot.

“Wait. “ I touched his arm. “Open the wine, while I light a fire?”

“I’m starving!” he said.

I was nervous to get it going, adjusting the air and the draft. The wood was damp, and my mind leaped ahead to the next day and perhaps finding cèpes or porcini in the forest. The bottle slowly emptied. Maybe she wouldn’t let the fire begin again. She being grand-mère. Had she forgiven me? I had kept her secret. I hadn’t told the tale of what happened here. Yet, that time was over now. It was safe to begin again. We sat back and raised our glasses. The flames twirled like the bird in the tapestry, the Bécasse, flying past the whispers of clouds over the moon, and the millhouse.

Cooking woodcocks or bécasse over a wood fire.

Cooking woodcocks or bécasse over a wood fire.

 The Auberge was unchanged, I breathed, wasn’t it? Twenty years was nothing in a place already hundreds of years old.

Much to his satisfaction we broke the crust, and playfully teased the heels of the baguette over the fire, turning and toasting. Smearing the hot pain with soft cheese.

I peered around the dark room, the fire reflecting our forms in the picture window.

To be continued.

***

*A bécasse in French is a woodcock.


Influenced by French heritage and traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch country where she was born and raised, Dorette Snover graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, was a private chef to the rich and eccentric, a food stylist, NPR commentator, and now teaches les bases de la cuisine at her cooking school, C’est si Bon!

In writing, Dorette’s plat du jour is strong female characters woven from her thirty years in the world of cuisine. and her personal journey through landscapes of culinary history. Dorette also leads tours to France for adults looking for truffles in all the right places and for teens interested in exploring the world through a culinary map.

 

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Cookalong: Istanbul and Beyond, by Robyn Eckhardt

Published by Saturday, March 17, 2018 Permalink 0

Join us from February 15 through April 15, 2018, in our Culinary Travel Facebook group as we explore the cuisine of one of the oldest regions of the world — the very name evokes visions of the Silk Road, never-ending caravans wending their way along deserts, stopping at oases to feast on large communal platters and the colorful, bright bazaars selling everything from precious gems to vegetables and sweetmeats; a vision of swirling dervishes and kohl-lined eyes watching you from behind ornate latticed screens.

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BOOK REVIEW: BAKING POWDER WARS

Published by Monday, November 13, 2017 Permalink 0

BOOK REVIEW: BAKING POWDER WARS

by Margie Gibson

Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking, by Linda Civitello 

If baking powder doesn’t seem substantial enough to merit an entire book, that’s only because its history and background have not been widely explored and remain generally unknown. Linda Civitello’s carefully researched book has finally opened a window onto a fascinating subject and era in U.S. history. The book is interdisciplinary in nature, shedding light on the science and chemistry behind baking powder, the international exchange of ideas and scientific knowledge that enabled the powder’s development, the history of chemical leavening agents, politics and corruption, suspicion of foreigners (in this case, Germans), and insights into the role baking powder played in the economic history of the U.S., as well as marketing, feminism, and social issues. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found especially interesting the book’s exploration of how baking powder revolutionized women’s lives, freeing them from the necessity of spending long hours kneading and baking bread for their families. The popularity of baking powder in the US  also explains how baking styles here developed differently from European baking — U.S. cooks relied much more extensively on a chemical leavening action while more traditional European cooks relied on beating bubbles into the batter and using eggs as a leavening. This difference created new American baked goods such as cookies, quick biscuits, cobblers, and light, fluffy cakes.

Baking Powder Wars provides fascinating insights into a unique American product — insights that will change the way you look at a marvelous invention that we have too long taken for granted.

Baking Powder Wars: The Cutthroat Food Fight that Revolutionized Cooking, by Linda Civitello, University of Illinois Press

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/98ppx5cp9780252041082.html

 

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A Life Worth Living

Published by Wednesday, June 29, 2016 Permalink 0

Herding the Sheep Down the Mountain in Villars-sur-Ollon

by Jonell Galloway

A tapestry-covered armchair worn thin from hours of sitting book in hand; a rickety wooden table with chipped red paint that matched your first kitchen; a yellow cat, plump with age, sits in your lap, All the Pretty Horses balanced over its head so you can continue reading: these are the things that make up a life worth living, not frantically running in your Jimmy Choo high heels to catch an airplane and dining in restaurants with spotless white tablecloths and silver so shiny you see a reflection of your red lipstick in it. Unfeigned life is simple joys: counting your babies’ toes after they come out of the womb, or feeling warm tears of love when you walk up the mountain behind your dearlings, or listening to cowbells and watching the shepherds drive their flocks over the pass and down, or discovering the first gentle rosebud of the year. It’s when your mother takes your hand and squeezes it with every ounce of energy she has left, no words necessary. It’s when you serve breakfast in bed to your husband, with a kiss thrown in. You’ll never forget that kiss, how his dark eyes, weak and tired, looked tenderly into yours, saying everything you ever needed to know. But even more, much more, the time he hired the little boy down the street to deliver a single red rose to you on your birthday because he didn’t have enough money to pay for a dozen roses to be delivered. That was the most special rose ever. When it’s all over, these moments will have been your life, transparent and whole: The roses at the weddings and baptisms and communions and bar mitzvahs and funerals, the red and the yellow and the pink, the rosebuds and the dried blooms and the fresh, all come together to form mountains and valleys of flowers that make a life worth living.

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Venetian Hours: Walking

Published by Monday, June 27, 2016 Permalink 0

by Jonell Galloway

Walking is an intimate act. I walk, and then walk some more, wherever I am, never knowing when to stop. Walking across Geneva, running into friends, they think it’s some feat, but it’s not; it’s a very natural way of getting around, better than any gym, rather like making love. I sweat and my heart beats and it’s cardio without ever changing from my city slicker clothes. It’s the best way to get to know a city. Façades lean toward you as if they’d fall down any minute and caress you, carved wooden doors beg for paint, sunlit vitrines are dressed for affluent Swiss “residents” as the eyes of passersby catch yours and you share a laugh at an incident startling to the sometimes overly civilized Swiss. French drivers roll down their windows and yell the worst words they can find to each other, then merrily continue on their way as they run the red light. Bus drivers curse under their breath and teenagers talk too loud just to make sure everyone knows they are alive. The city is animated, not blocked or filtered by tinted bus and car windows, not drowned out by loud music on a car radio. Engines roar and horns blow and you and the city are one; you share a common chaos and make do with it, knowing that you are living in a very comfortable, silky-smooth world and shouldn’t complain.

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Kentucky Food: Barry King’s Angel Biscuits

Published by Monday, June 27, 2016 Permalink 1

onlinepastrychef via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

 

Angel biscuits are eaten at special Kentucky meals such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Derby.

2 pkg. active dry yeast (don’t use quick-rise yeast)
1/2 tsp. sugar
8 Tbsp. warm water

5 cups all-purpose flour (I use White Lily)
1 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. baking powder
4 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 cup Crisco (solid) or other vegetable shortening or lard, well-chilled
2 cups cold buttermilk
Butter, melted

Yield: 60 small cocktail size biscuits or about 2-dozen large.

NOTE: Angel biscuits can be made and baked immediately, but I like to make the them 12-24 hours in advance, so that the biscuits have time to rest and ferment a bit before baking — it adds a special quality to the flavor.

angel biscuits and country ham, Kentucky Derby Southern food, recipe by Barry King

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water, and let it rest until mixture begins to foam.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, sift flour with remaining dry ingredients. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal.
  3. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture; add buttermilk and yeast mixture to the flour and stir with a large spoon until a soft fluffy dough just comes together.
  4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead/fold a couple of times. Pat out dough to flatten.
  5. Using a rolling pin, roll dough out until it is at least 1/2-inch inch thickness.
  6. Using a biscuit cutter (small for cocktail sandwiches, or larger to accompany a meal), cut dough into individual biscuits and place on a greased cookie sheet.
  7. Brush lightly with melted butter, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator.
  8. About an hour before baking: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  9. Remove biscuits from the refrigerator and allow to proof at room temperature in a warm kitchen — the biscuits should start to rise and be soft/pillowy to the touch.
  10. Place biscuits on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden.
  11. When done, the biscuits will be 1 1/2 to 2 inches in height.
  12. Brush lightly with melted butter.
  13.  They are perfect for brunch or filled with sliced Kentucky country ham with cocktails.
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Unleavened Bread for Passover

Published by Wednesday, April 13, 2016 Permalink 0

Unleavened Bread for Passover

by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, translated from the French by Jonell Galloway

Ahava is sitting in the middle of the courtyard, a large terra cotta dish in front of her. She is displaying her riches: freshly ground flour in an earthenware jar with a handle and an amphora containing spring water, a bowl half-full to dip her hands into: the simplest of accoutrements. Across from her, Malka, a child with a sharp, somewhat pinched nose, gossamer skin, and long fingers that turn inwards; Ahava is teaching her 10-year-old granddaughter the art of bread making. Unleavened bread, flat bread, bread for survival. Malka is now of the age to learn to make matzo to be shared at this evening’s Passover seder, the ritual meal marking the start of Pesach. The movements, the setting, are timeless. “An encounter, a meeting,” explains Ahava. “Pesach starts with the union of flour and spring water in an earthenware bowl.” The jar is deep. She has to dig down into its very depths to get the flour. She plunges her hand in, then her forearm, then, slowly, her whole arm, as if she had to give her whole self to it, finally drawing her arm out of its depths and back into the daylight. Her hand, cupped to hold the immaculate white powder, now opens. Though her fingers are closed together, flour disperses into the air like rain caught by a gush of wind, scattering, causing a flood of silence. “On its journey from grain to powdery substance,” says Ahava, her hand still taut and cupped, but open, “the flour has never encountered water.” “It’s never touched water?” Malka says with surprise in her voice. “Never,” replies Ahava.

Translated from Ayzme, by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, published by Actes Sud, 2016.

 

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What to Eat in France: Lapin au Miel et à la Moutarde

Published by Friday, August 7, 2015 Permalink 0

What to Eat in France: Lapin au Miel et à la Moutarde, or Honey Mustard Rabbit

by Jonell Galloway

In the Orléanais and Beauce regions around where I live in Chartres, rabbit is king. They raise them and hunt them as well, eating hare during hunting season. They make distinctions depending on the age and kind of rabbit.

Historically, the French have had a preference for lièvre or hare or lapin de garenne or wild rabbit. Gastronomes like Prosper Montagné considered the flesh of domestic rabbits tasteless and in need of heavy seasoning.

In the late eighteenth century, poor Parisians consumed rabbits regularly. They fed them cabbage leaves and kept the rabbit hutches by their beds.

Domestic rabbit must be eaten young — at 3 to 3 1/2 months old — and is called lapin, while young wild rabbit is called lapereau. Domestic rabbit has white, tender flesh, while the young hares produce firmer meat of which the flavor has more character. It can, however, taste musty. It’s best to check for mustiness before cooking because it can sometimes render it inedible.

Today, the most common recipe is for Lapin à la Moutarde, or rabbit with mustard. This recipe can in fact be made with both honey and/or mustard, giving a classic honey mustard taste to the flesh.

miel_gatinais

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The region has been known for its honey, Miel du Gâtinais, since the Middle Ages, and is a blend of acacia, heather, chestnut and forest honey.

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What to Eat in France: Fougasse aux Anchois

Published by Thursday, August 6, 2015 Permalink 0

What to Eat in France: Flat Provençal Bread Cooked in Wood Oven with Anchovy Paste and Rosemary

Fougasse is a traditional flat loaf made in Provence and cooked in woodash. It can be served plain, or with olives, bacon bits, anchovies or cheese. Some even add sugar and spices or jam.

The word fougasse, fougace or fouasse comes from Provençal, but variations have spread all over Europe, and include Italy’s focaccia and Spain’s fougassa. It originally came from the Latin panis focacius, meaning “a flat bread cooked in an oven or over the ashes of a fire.” It was originally eaten plain, but there are endless variations these days. The sweet version can be eaten for breakfast and is usually eaten cold, while the savory version is eaten hot out of the oven.

The ingredients are simple: flour, water, sometimes eggs or milk, and yeast. Even though recipes vary from village to village and region to region, some using baker’s yeast and others baking powder, it is always flat like a pancake, and shaped into the branches, giving it the shape of ears of wheat. It is the shape that makes it distinctive.

See recipe on the next page.

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Lists of Food Writers

Published by Wednesday, August 5, 2015 Permalink 0

Lists of Food Writers

Historical Food Writers

Archestratus

Apicius

J.A. Brillat-Savarin

Grimod de La Reyniere

Carême

Artusi

Escoffier

Historians of Food and Foodways

Rachel Laudan

Lizzie Collingham

Alan Davidson

Claudia Roden

Margaret Visser

Carolin C. Young

Michael J. Twitty

Waverley Root

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